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35 years ago I produced local rock concerts and owned a night club in the Bay Area.My brother printed the posters that were done for each show(about 30).I used 3 different local artists.They were all paid.None of the the posters were copywitten.I have the originals that are now valuable.I would like to copywrite all of them with the Library of Congress.Please tell me how to proceed.

I don't think there is an absolute requirement that the artists be a company's employees for a court to find that the works were created as "works for hire." However, in the absence of a written contract, the issue becomes very muddy.

The way to proceed would be to file registrations with the US Copyright Office. Also, if it is possible to find the orginal artists, I don't think it is too late to secure their agreement that the works were "works for hire" and that copyright belongs to the owner of the nightclub.

Registering the copyrights is fairly straightforward and not really expensive. If you need help with the procedure for registering copyrights, my office is located in Palo Alto and I would be happy to help.

As long as you paid for the creation of the posters by the artists, the copyright belongs to you under the legal doctrine of "work done for hire." It simply means that when someone does work that they are hired to do, the copyright belongs to the person/entity paying for the work. It would be good if you had a written contract to this effect but, if not, I still don't think you have much to worry about - unless one of the original three artists have become famous during the meantime.